Pichilemu, Chile 2010

Jun 29, 2010 No Comments by hutch

G’day Fellow Poomen and other surfers,

Just thought i’d share some photos of my recent expedition to Pichilemu for a few weeks. Pichilemu is 3 hours south of Santiago, Chile and yup you guessed it, the water is the coldest i’ve ever surfed in. When you see penguins and seals surfing with you, you know two things:

1. It’s firking cold.
2. There’s probably something closeby wanting a seal or penguin for lunch.

The other problem is that i’m about 6′3 in height, most Chileans are about 5ft and i didnt bring my board or wetsuit with me. Which meant finding a wetsuit and board to hire was difficult. One shop just ripped a brand spanking new billabong wettie off the rack for me, booties and a couple of average at best boards to hire for 5000 peso’s a day about A$10. Not too shabby.

Alright the surf, the surf in Pichilemu and the surrounding area is super super consistent. On average it was head-head-and-a-half, some days where massive and other days the wind was a pain but all in all there was only 2 days where it wasnt worth a surf. And that was because it was simply huge. On those day’s they held a paddle in only big wave contest so we went and watched some madmen from around the world paddle in behind he rocks onto some monster waves. They were even pulling into barrels on 18ft beasts.

In Pichilemu the locals only really surf the main three left hand points. There are beach breaks hidden along the coast and there are other breaks but no one can be bothered when you can walk to 700m peeling consistent lefthanders from your house. So everyone in town surfs the three main points, it can get busy say 10 people in the water but you just wait until 1pm when all then men go home to their wives for lunch and the lineup is empty except for the penguins.

There are other breaks we went too, they require a car or 4WD so not too many people bother. Too far to get home for lunch i think. Again, there the same old boring classic empty lefthander barrelling point breaks. Unfortunately my photographer was off to doing spanish lessons so there arent many photos.

Sorry for all the photos, though i hope you enjoy them. They’re mostly of two point breaks which have good places to shoot and watch from.